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How Far Is the Moon from Earth? [Video]

Further than you’d think, apparently. Given a basketball (to represent Earth) and a tennis ball (the Moon), most people guess within an arm’s length, which in reality is close enough to send Luna plummeting into the Pacific. Others take a few steps back, which is warmer but still close enough to put some cataclysmic stress on the Equator.

In truth, the distance from the Earth to the Moon at this scale is roughly 17.5 feet, which from Mars looks a little something like this:

@Quicksand24: Looking it up is good advice! The semi-major axis of the moon is 384,399 km. The speed of light is 299,792.458 km/s. Therefore the time is takes is 1.28 seconds. Could you possibly be thinking of the round-trip time for light or communications to go there and back?